Here
we go. I’m gonna try to be as
transparent as possible with you guys today.
This one is gonna be a little tough for me, not because I fear judgment
or have any shame, but because you never want to be the one airing the dirty
laundry of another. That’s not my
place. So I’m stepping gingerly this morning,
but I’m stepping nonetheless.
There
are women in my family that have spent their fair share of time in physically
abusive relationships and even as a grade school child, it never made any sense
to me. Why on God’s green earth would any
person in their right mind willing sign up to be another person’s punching
bag? Why? Why would they cry, complain, and get law
enforcement involved time after time, just to again open the doors of their
homes and hearts to the hurtful ones?
Why, as a woman, would you knowingly expose your children to such a
relationship? To such destruction…such
terror… I saw it in my own home and I
saw it in the homes of other family members, and it just flat out left me
baffled. Scratching my head for answers
and coming up with nothing. It brought
such sadness to me to see these supposed strong women let themselves get
reduced to something less than human as they were yelled at, called names,
slapped, punched and kicked around. They
were awful scenes and it was horrendous to watch.
I
grew up hating them at times and having absolutely no respect for them. Even as a kid I knew better. In school we were learning the meaning of
self-respect, and it was clear to me that these women had none. If I knew anything, I knew I would never grow
up to be like them. I knew I would never
let a lover, a friend, or otherwise beat me and treat me as if I were less
than. That’s a vow I made to myself as a
child and I’ve carried it with me all my life.
I wanted no parts of what they had because I am better than that.
Well…God
strikes again. Just this week I’ve had
the pleasure of meeting a woman who was in one of those ugly situations that I
described earlier. That was once the
world she lived in, and she’s seen her life hanging in the balance. Saving the emotional damage that comes with
any abusive situation, she’s managed to come out on the other side whole and in
one piece. However it happened, our
conversation tiptoed the topics of physical abuse and long before she began to
share her personal story with me she said, “Jaz, I would ask and urge you to
love those woman still. Find it in your
heart to have empathy for them because to live in the world they once lived in,
you’ve got to be in a very dark place.”
She
went on to as best she could, paint the picture of the mindset of the woman
that stays in abusive relationships. And
for the first time in my life, I began to see the women in my family
differently. I actually hurt and felt
sorry for them. All these years I’ve
been wagging an imaginary index finger in their faces calling them all kinds of
stupid, dumb idiots – but my new friend has opened my eyes to a different point of
view and I will be eternally grateful.
I
will never know what it’s like to walk in the shoes that an abused woman wears, but I do have a much better understanding for the mental space they
reside in. And I can open my heart, and
I can love them in spite of the mistakes I feel they make. I can respect them regardless of what my eyes
see. And I can be there for them because
I now recognize that though they may not voice it, they need me.
I’ve
written posts before on perspective, and it’s a topic that never gets old. I am super-duper grateful for crossing paths
with this new friend and I’m honored and humbled that she trusted me enough to
share.
My name is
Jasmynne Shaye, and this is me STEPPING
ON A FEW TOES.
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